“How was your New York trip, darling?” Mother said. She was trying to change the subject, but she’d made a tactical error with her choice of topic. Why could no one except him seem to understand Father’s triggers?

“Yes, how was New York?” his father echoed, infusing the question with a sneer. “How was the party?”

Here they went. Max wasn’t sure why Father was so annoyed, given that he’d been pleased about Max’s attendance at Lucrecia’s party, but they were certain to find out.

“What party?” Sebastien asked.

“I spoke to Ludwig von Bachenheim yesterday,” Father said. “He tells me that Lavinia reports you and she barely spoke.”

“We did speak!” Max winced internally. That had come out too indignantly. Max very much wanted not to be the kind of person whose father had conversations with other old men about what he did or did not do, but that was beyond his control. All he could control was how he reacted. “Lavinia and I had a chat about a Broadway show she’d been to see.” Their conversation had been brief, though, and Lavinia hadn’t seemed very interested. He wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t made a lasting impression.

“Who is Lavinia?” Seb asked, and Max wanted to scream. As bad as his father’s heavy-handed meddling was, at this moment, Seb was almost getting to him more. His naive questioning. His naive everything. And in this case his innocent question was going to set off a whole chain of “discussion.” It wasn’t that Max expected Seb, a twenty-five-year-old younger son of a duke who had lived a sheltered life, to have street smarts. After all, Max had made sure Seb had led a sheltered life. But could he pay a little attention? Could he have the tiniest bit of instinct with regard to cause and effect?

“Lavinia is Lucrecia von Bachenheim’s sister,” Max said brusquely, irrationally hoping that would be the end of it.

“I didn’t know she had a sister,” Seb said, and Max wanted to throttle him.

“She’s the younger,” Mother said. “She’s at Yale.”

“Because you know our Max,” Father drawled. “He can’t be content with just any girl. She must be a genius to be worthy of him.”

“What does that mean?” Max snapped. Lavinia had been his parents’ idea. But that was Father for you. Four martinis in and he could twist anything, including reality, to suit his seemingly ever-present desire to pick on someone.

But Max didn’t have to take the bait. He pushed back from the table. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Sit,” his father snapped.

“Max,” Mother said in a tone she probably intended to be soothing but had the opposite effect. “We haven’t had dessert yet.”

“We have an entire afternoon of cocoa ahead of us.” And martinis.